A.J. Ellis

I’m back baby! Returned henceforth from thy vacation, and I have no idea if that attempt at Ol’ English made any sense. Now I wanna drink a 40! Which is something Julio Urias can’t do!

So much happens in baseball when you’re gone for two weeks! Well, I was just on vacation for one week, but most of it was without internet. Yeah – rough! First time I’ve done a big vacation like that during the baseball season. Not gonna lie though – kinda worth it for a little break. But alas – we have a lot to catch up on! Like Urias getting a very surprising (to me) call up this early. Sure he was mowing down AAA, but he’s 19 and the Dodgers seemed to go into the year with a lot of pitching options. Then Alex Wood went from scratched (giving Urias his debut in a “spot-start” that went poorly against the Mets) to the DL, so Urias has a shot to stick in the rotation for a bit. With that little bit of extra leash, how would Urias respond in a tough matchup at Wrigley? Here’s how the MLB’s youngest cub fared last Thursday afternoon:

Yeah, I did already use this title, didn’t I?! Manaea? Maeda? Tomato? Tomatto?! Let’s call the whole thing off! What’s funny is Sean Manaea and Kenta Maeda couldn’t be more different either, with the former is a lefty hard-thrower, and the other a righty craftsman…

I got a good amount of flack the first few weeks of the Pitcher Profile ranks for not moving Maeda way up, but I think he’s going to end up a pretty average pitcher in fantasy terms – something akin to a standard league SP4. Like Grey’s Pulitzer-winning “Matt Harvey is sucking because of the playoff workload last year” advice on the Podcast, I’ve always maintained the entirely unique and previously un-thought “Maeda could start strong, but will fade as the league sees him more.” We’re all about the hard-hitting advice here at Razzball!

We’ve begun to see the cracks in the armor from Maeda (can’t use a different phrase because of Jeremy Lin, thanks ESPN). After a 0.36 ERA through his first 4 starts, he sported a 5.82 the next 4 heading into yesterday afternoon. Didn’t expect it to regress this fast! Comments exclaiming for a Maeda move-up in my ranks certainly went away! But within this 8-start microcosm, I indeed think Maeda is somewhere in that law of averages. So after a few requests for a Maeda profile, I decided to break down his start yesterday afternoon in a saucy matchup at Petco to see how he looks.

Mad Max Fury Road was a wildly loud, hard, smoking fastball that has everything in common with our Heterochromia Max that will be starting today against the Atlanta not so Braves. Opening Day? Check. Nitromethane? Check. Mad Max? Check. Fire? Check. Blood? Ehh, possibly. I know J-Foh and I have some Nitro on tap, but if you’re only 3 for 5 don’t worry it’s baseball. You’re hitting .600 like Polanco through the first game of the season and it’s OPENING DAY! Welcome Razzballers to the first (technically the second) 2016 Draftkings Post!! There’s not going to be a ton of analytics today because ummm, it’s the first day of the season, but I do have a few tricks up my sleeve that should pay off for you. “You’ve got the best crew in the world standing in front of you, give them a reason to stay” Vin Diesel, Fast & Furious 6. I’m sure you’re asking yourself right now, “Why is he quoting a Fast & Furious movie?” Guilty pleasure, fo sho, but more importantly it’s a disclaimer to you, our DK readers. Sky (the DFS mastermind behind the scenes) has put together an unbelievable All-Star team of daily experts that are going to spend EVERY DAY of the season throwing down some moneymaking knowledge on yo asses. Sharpen your pencils or iPads and lets get to work. We’re going to make it real simple for you, whether you’re a first timer or a seasoned veteran. Read our analysis EVERY DAY, set your team and take everyone else’s money. Sound Good? Great, Let’s get started.

Welcome to the 2016 Razzball Team Previews! You’ll find everything you need to know about each team to get yourself ready for the upcoming fantasy baseball season. And I mean everything, folks. We’ve got line-ups, charts, Slurpees, lube, a guide for beginner electricians, and even a cactus! Well, that’s a lie. That’s what Jay had last year sitting in front of him. This year? Um…a little less lube? Take that as you will. But hey, we’ve got teams to preview and questions to ask, so let’s hop to it. We a very special guest for this post…Daniel Brim, to provide his take on what the team has in store this season. Now enough rambling, let’s see what 2016 holds for the Los Angeles Dodgers!

Party people in the place to be it’s your host, the Legendary Lif-s-h-i-t-z back on the M-I-C. That’s right Y’all, I’m back on my DFS grind with DraftKings, bringing the funk on what we used to call Hip-Hop Sunday. Maybe we still do, I don’t know, I’m too busy dominating fantasy sports, NCAA pools, DFS games, pushup contests, and beard growing competitions. It’s an exciting life I lead and I still find time to make babies at rates only matched by Mel Gibson. So how’s everybody been? Have you been filling your time with inferior daily fantasy games like basketball, football, or hockey? It’s cool, the grand master is back and you can play along with your old Uncle Ralph just like you did all last summer. I promise I won’t get drunk again and get too touchy. That was a one time thing and it’s not that big a deal because we’re all adults and I’m not really your Uncle. BTW, that reminds me of a question that’s been burning my head like a splinter in my mind. When did incest porn become a thing? What’s wrong with you people? Have you no shame? Has the country music craze gone too far? I’ll just be right here bumping some Old School Wu-Tang pretending it’s 1996.

Any the who, Daily Fantasy Baseball is why we’re here right? That’s correct so I should probably get to talking about it. How many of you are believers in BvP? Some of you are shaking your head, some of you may think I’m about to talk about a dutch footballer, and some of you may actually be fellow believers. It’s batter vs. pitcher historical data and it’s the one thing that I always consider before making my lineups on DraftKings. I want to know who’s hit who in the past because that’s a hell of a lot more relevant than making assumptions based on who I think is good and who I think is bad. This will be a theme throughout my picks below, so take a look, follow my guide to cashing and who knows you might end up telling your league mates to Run The Jewels.

Here’s a scenario for you: Hanley Ramirez and Carlos Gonzalez get onto a plane. Knowing their inability to stay healthy, you A) Get off the plane. B) Purposely get yourself thrown off the plane by calling the male flight attendant, Mr. Stewardess, and asking him if he’s the pimp for the female stewardesses and if you could have a multi-person shag in the lavatory. C) There’s no C. Any of the above answers would work, even C and there wasn’t a C. CarGo can’t stay healthy and Hanley doesn’t seem to want to. If you count 145 games played as a full season, CarGo’s played one full season. This year, he might not play in 71 games and he’s at 70. Yes, he could be done for the year. Yes, it’s bad news with CarGo. Freight so. Even if he plays again, he has 11 homers and 3 steals in 70 games. Yunel Escobar looks at that and talks to a trademark attorney. It’s gonna be fun next year hearing people draft CarGo while they say, “I just need him to stay healthy for 120 games.” Those people are called delusional. As for Hanley, he’s supposed to return as soon as his DL stint is over, and he should as long as he doesn’t have to play hard in a rehab assignment. That would be impossible for him even if healthy. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

Tsuyoshi Wada hit the majors leagues yesterday, so let’s talk about the new Yu Darvish! Actually, that’s Masahiro Tanaka. Okay, let’s talk about the new Hiroki Kuroda! That’s Ryu. Uh, the new Cubs pitcher that I’m excited about? That’s Arrieta. The new pitcher that autocorrect tries to change his first name to tsuris? By the by, is my autocorrect anti-Semitic? Why does it suggest tsuris? Because I’m half-Heb? And why did autocorrect just change Jew to Heb. Siri, dial the Anti-Defamation League and apologize. “Dialing your mother now.” Siri, not cool! Any pitcher that does compare to Wada? Yes, the new Bruce Chen. So, Wada is a rookie in name only. He’s 33 years old, and the first rookie with salt and pepper hair to throw five shutout innings since Satchel Paige. He’s also a soft-tossing lefty. Yawn. He might catch some hitters off-balance, but he’s probably around a high-6 K/9 and a 4 ERA pitcher. Yesterday’s line of 5 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 3 Ks is okay, but not much to flap your gums about outside of NL-Only leagues. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Thank God Apollo Creed was played by Carl Weathers and notKhris Davis. The reason I say this is because when Balboa Switched to Southpaw in the last round of Rocky 2 Davis would have killed him! Khris Davis (OF, $4,100) is a cyborg sent to Earth to destroy lefty pitching. (A Cyborg huh? That’s a bit overly dramatic don’t you think?) No seriously he is!! Allow me to explain. This season Davis has a .452 wOBA against lefties with 6 homers, 16 Rbi’s, and a wRC+ of 191. Davis’ wRC+ against lefties is more than double what it is against righties. Lucky for Davis, The Brewers, and most esspically us Daily Fantasy Players he faces a lefty tomorrow….a bad one. Christian Friedrich is a lefty who in 17 career starts has an ERA of 6.15. He also has a HR/9 of 1.49 to go along with a tidy 3.28 BB/9, what I’m more or less saying is the Brewers stack is very much in play today. The only way this matchup could setup any better for the Brewers is if the game was played in Coors with metal bats filled with super balls. I think Carlos Gomez (OF, $4,500), Jonathan Lucroy (C, $4,600), and Aramis Ramirez (3B, $4,900) are all solid plays today. I’d suggest Ryan Braun (OF, $5.600) but his price tag is too high considering his numbers against lefties are the worst of all the Brew-Crew members named.

Now time for my shameless plug!

If you’re not playing daily fantasy baseball with us on Draftkings you’re missing out. Not only will we hook you up with a ticket to one free game just for signing up. Once you’re on you’ll have the oppourtunity to play head to head against some of your favorite Razzball writers in the contests we’re running daily. We’ve been filling up a 20 team league the last couple of nights and the competition has been great. I’ll make sure to post the link below. There’s also no need to fret about who to start because with our daily columns and advanced tools like the DFSbot, Hitter-tron, and Stream-o-Nator. In other words we got you covered.

Daily fantasy brings a whole new dimension to the we look at fantasy players. We’re getting used to streaming pitchers which has become a great strategy being implemented over the last few years, but daily fantasy takes it to a whole new level. You don’t have to drop anyone to pick up the man of the hour, knowing that his long-term value will be equivalent to Lenny Dykstra’s business ventures.

If you get off watching a pitcher dominate like I do, then you’ll appreciate the pornutopia of starters going today. Masa-Hero, Darvish, Greinke, Cueto, Scherzer, and Wacha are all on cam today. If I gotta pick two, I’m taking Cueto and Tanaka. Darvish has been lit up by the A’s, almost to the extent I want to stack against him today. Greinke and Wacha have been a bit shaky lately and, besides his last start, so has Scherzer and the Royals bats are about as hot as it gets in baseball right now. I’m rolling the dice on Roenis Elias today. He’s had some rough ones lately as well, but he’s also had some dominant outings including a complete game shutout with 8 Ks against the Tigers just ten days ago. And the K’s seem real as he boasts nearly 8 K/9 this year. He also has the most tasty matchup on the slate today facing the Padres who get nothing right against lefties as they mutter a .598 OPS against them this year which is marginally crappier than anyone other squad. A price tag of $8,000 climaxes the excitement with dough to blow on some other nice pieces.

Hopefully, you’ve been playing along with us at Draftkings so far this year. If not, c’mon and join us cuz we’ve been having daily leagues for the last two weeks thanks to the zealous @RalphLifshitzbb who’s been heading it up. We aren’t wagering huge, but just making sure to have some fun with $1 on the line each day. Come on and hang out and test your mettle with us. Here’s a link to our fun little cash game today. The Razzball community only gains strength as we reach out to more avenues. If you haven’t signed up yet use this link cuz you’ll get a free contest to start building your stack. Here’s a few more highlights of today’s DFS best offerings:

Yesterday, Carlos Santana went 0-for-5 with 1 RBI. He could’ve hit six homers yesterday and still only had one RBI, because the guy in front of him said to the media, “By the power vested in me in the state of Cleveland — is this a state? — I now pronounce myself Lonnie Gonnie. I will now release an album that will be critically drubbed, but the masses will enjoy it called, ‘Lonnie Went Gonnie.’ Then the straight-to-DVD movies I star in will be reprisals of the Ernest movies, but with Lonnie in the title. For example, ‘Lonnie Goes To Africa’ or ‘Lonnie Goes to Jail.’ Is there any questions for Lonnie Gonnie? No? Good, because I got homers to hit and ribbies to eat and average to drive up the wazoo like I’m a wazoo driving machine.” Yesterday, Lonnie Chisenhall went H.A.M then damn, then come again, ma’am. Three homers (5, 6, 7), nine RBIs, and raised his average up to .385 while going 5-for-5. That’s a career .265 hitter. Zoinks! He’s probably going to remember who he really is at some point soon, but ride the lightning while Lonnie’s rocking out. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball: